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Fifty years on, Dallas remembers JFK

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Just a few hours ago, the city of Dallas held its first public memorial for president John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated exactly 50 years ago as he was driven through the streets.

It's a milestone for the city, which has not always been comfortable about publicly acknowledging the tragedy.

For years, Dallas was known as the 'City of Hate'.

Since then though, it's redefined itself, through things like the success of the Cowboys football team and the 1980s soap opera that bore its name.

But as Ben Knight now reports from Dallas, the assassination has been unfinished business - until now.

BEN KNIGHT: Fifty years ago today, Dallas was bathed in beautiful bright sunshine. So pleasant was the weather that when the Kennedys arrived on Air Force One, the Secret Service decided to remove the glass roof of the presidential limousine for the drive through the city.

That of course was the last time a US president ever did or ever will ride in an open-top car.

Today, the weather in Dallas is very different: appropriately dismal, freezing wind and drizzle. It's fair to wonder what might have been had the weather not been so nice half a century ago.

But this city has been asking itself those 'what if' questions ever since, as it bore the glare of a nation that regarded it as the City of Hate that contained itself something rotten that somehow contributed to the killing of the president.

Today, the mayor of Dallas Mike Rawlings acknowledged the pain of those years.

MIKE RAWLINGS: In those awesome days following the assassination, the most powerful searchlight man possesses was focussed on this city. Every flaw, every raw spot, every wrinkle and every uncleanness was put under a microscope and shown to the world.

BEN KNIGHT: The Kennedy assassination has hung over the city of Dallas for 50 years, and growing up here meant growing up with the ghost of JFK.

SETH SMITH: There was a great, great deal of shame.

BEN KNIGHT: Seth Smith was two years old in 1963.

SETH SMITH: People from around the country referred to: 'oh, you're going to Dallas, you're going to Assassination City', or 'you're going to the town that killed Kennedy', and the city really shouldered the blame for it for many, many years.

BEN KNIGHT: Emily Sides is just 24, but she too grew up in Dallas with John F. Kennedy, who her parents adored.

EMILY SIDES: They went to a museum in Fort Worth and they bought a life-size JFK cut-out, and it was in our living room.

BEN KNIGHT: But she certainly doesn't feel any of the guilt some the city's older citizens do.

EMILY SIDES: There's so many killings that I guess it's almost part of our daily American lives: that we know there are those madmen out there, so for me to look back and say that there was one at Dallas, it doesn't feel like it was Dallas' fault. It feels like that happens everywhere in the United States.

EMILY SIDES: You know, there's people that still live here that are still affected by it. They'll still cry about it and they know where they were when it happened, but then there's this other part of the city that's young and they didn't grow up with that, and it's part of their history but it's not defining them.

BEN KNIGHT: This is very much a Dallas memorial. There are no Kennedys here, nor are there any dignitaries of note from outside this city.

And there's a sense that this long overdue acknowledgement will allow Dallas to draw a line under its past.

But of course, much of the city moved on long ago. Seth Smith owns a bar these days - he called it Lee Harvey's and this weekend, it's selling a special cocktail to mark the anniversary. It's called the Magic Bullet.

Not everyone might think it's in the best taste, but nor has he had any complaints.

BEN KNIGHT: Dallas can cope with it?

SETH SMITH: I think Dallas can definitely cope with it. Dallas is a very friendly city, but we're scrappy, so we'll hang in there.

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